Shinra Myojin and Buddhist Networks of the East Asian "Mediterranean ".

• Author: Eubanks, Charlotte

Shinra Myojin and Buddhist Networks of the East Asian "Mediterranean ". By SUJUNG KlM. Honolulu: UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I PRESS, 2020. Pp. x + 180. $68.

Viewed narrowly, Kim's study is a close examination of a single deity: Shinra Myojin. Shinra Myojin is typically recognized as one of the dharma protectors (goho) of the Tendai sect of medieval Japanese Buddhism and as tutelary deity of Onjoji (also known as Miidera) temple in Omi, current-day Shiga Prefecture. According to legend, the Japanese monk Enchin (814-891) was returning to the Japanese islands after having spent several years studying Buddhism on the continent. Amid raging seas, an old man appeared suddenly aboard Enchin's boat, identifying himself as Shinra Myojin and reassuring Enchin that he would protect him, his teachings, and the study of Buddhism until the coming of the future buddha Maitreya. Upon his safe return, Enchin revived the Onjoji temple, which in time became the headquarters for the powerful Tendai Jimon sect and which continues to hold a place for Shinra Myojin, who is enshrined in a dedicated building on the temple's extensive grounds.

Even in this most basic approximation, Shinra Myojin plays a crucial, if momentary, role for the formation of medieval Japanese Buddhism, enabling the transmission of the dharma from the continent, authenticating it by way of a miracle at sea, and then ensuring its safe deposit and later flourishing in the Japanese islands: a tidy, linear narrative. Even in this narrow view, Kim's study holds great value. It is, to the best of my knowledge, the first monograph on the Tendai Jimon School, which--though greatly overshadowed in scholarship by its rival on Mount Hiei, the Sanmon School--has been a cultural, political, and religious powerhouse for at least the last thousand years. Beginning to understand Jimon practice on its own terms is an important step for Japanese and Buddhist studies scholarship, and Kim convincingly argues that "Shinra Myojin was at the heart of the Jimon's institutional development following [its] split" from the Sanmon School (p. 1).

More interestingly, however, Kim's study explodes the pat, linear account of Shinra Myojin as an enabler and endorser of the translocation of Buddhist teachings from the continent to Japan. Beginning with the rather obvious observation that Shinra Myojin [phrase omitted] literally means "deity of the Silla Kingdom" ([phrase omitted], 57 BCE-935 CE) Kim unpacks a transregional...